Heart of the Swarm: clown-empowering at its best

The second part of the StarCraft II trilogy is out now. Patrick Garratt plays through the opening hours, emerging a level 10, gum-chewing brosef on a mission to burrow for love and honour.

I may be some weird alien woman but I’m in love and I want to get married and cook Jim dinner and have little zerg babies with little space marine diapers on their little mutant asses.

This is pretty cool, right? Sarah Kerrigan, the girl-next-door porn star alien with her Seven of Nine boob suit and glans-chomping lips, has had her wings that aren’t really wings cut off and is dreaming about vengeance. She isn’t purple any more, but what the hey. It’s not like anyone plays any of this for the fucking plot. Whatever. With the disappearance of the Queen of Blades, the zerg swarm has been shattered, yada yada. Jim Raynor’s trying to save the poor super-extra-terrestrial empress and make her all human and shit. The Dominion wants to kill her. Someone’s running out of time, but that just means the boobs are bouncier, so that’s awesome.

Planets are planetoids and that marine armour’s fucking shit-hot. This is pretty cool, right? Raynor never gave up on you, Sarah. She’s got glowy eyes and she wants to kill Minsk, the Dominion leader. It’s not like anyone plays any of this for the fucking plot.

Kerrigan has to go through this stupid training section, like she’s some fucking noob or shit. Like, how the fuck don’t you know that the zerg army builds with a hatchery and a spawning pool and your drones collect resources and you mutate larvae into whatever, like zerglings, which are pretty cool, right? The zerglings run around and free other zerlings from the stupid terrans and I hardly fucking knew I was learning anything, because I’m not a noob, k? Fuck you, buddy. Like you can teach me any shit. I was playing Heart of the Swarm, like, ten fucking years ago.

So Kerrigan and Raynor have this little flirty kissy-shit bit, because she’s a fragile mass-murderer or whatever, and they’re off. Like, why does he keep trying to rescue her when she’s like the most awesome person ever? She can fry people with her fucking mind, but she does all this doe-eyed stuff, looking up at Raynor like she’s sucking his fucking dick. Whatever. Killing loads of people’s like riding a bike, she reckons, and I reckon that too, because Blizzard RTS is awesome even if it isn’t much like riding a bike.

The first mission is Kerrigan and Raynor escaping a marooned ship (I think). She says things like on the same page, and I gotcha, and pushing ahead, and work to be done, because this is StarCraft and that’s fine. She’s got psychic specials like Crushing Grip and Kinetic Blast and a big gun, so this is pretty cool, right? I’m flying around on an isometric tram (a fucking tram?), and it’s all shiny and spinny. Like, even a noob playing on casual difficulty could enjoy this. Not that I am. Fuck you, buddy.

You fight a massive mech thing, get split up from Raynor and everyone’s cheesing the fuck out of each other on the intercom. It’s, like, Blizzard is the final word in man-boy sci-fi and everyone has to make it, or take a shot, or see someone on the other side, but that’s fine because it’s StarCraft and I’m winning and I feel awesome because it’s so fucking slick and I’ve got massive tits just like I always wanted and I won’t leave Jim behind because that’s just wrong and there is no wrong in this game because I may be some weird alien woman but I’m in love and I want to get married and cook Jim dinner and have little zerg babies with little space marine diapers on their little mutant asses.

Now this is the first proper mission and I’m base-building with the zerg, which I would never have done before if I was a noob, but I’m not, so I have, like hundreds of times. Then I’m controlling more than 200 zerg to bring down a terran cannon, and if I’d never played zerg before and only played a few hours of Wings of Liberty, I might be pretty fucking surprised at just how easy it is to get into again, but I’m well experienced so fuck you. Slamming the fuck out of bases with hordes of aliens is basically amazing, k? And, like, there’s a publicly announced terrorist death, like someone’s killed Osama, right? And there’s, like, peace and shit but that’s obviously a lie, right? It’s like some deep and fucking meaningful stance on modern America, and I definitely won’t carry on playing the campaign to find out what happens, because it’s not like anyone plays any of this for the fucking plot.

If you have a capable PC and you don’t get Heart of the Swarm you’re a fucking idiot. Like, you need Wings of Liberty to run it but if you haven’t already bought that you’re a fucking idiot. This is the stupidest, most over-blown, most beautifully designed, highest budget, ultra-slickest, man-hulkiest, tit-heaviest, clown-empoweringiest RTS ever created. You’re not playing it? Then fuck you, buddy.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is out now for PC.

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The biggest update to date for Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, dubbed only patch 2.1, is on its way, and Blizzard will open it up to public testing in a couple weeks — “after Blizzcon,” which takes place November 8 and 9. You’ll need to watch the Bnet blog for info on how to […]